How To: Turn a 6-speed Sport gear knob into a 5-speed on an MX-5

February 26th, 2010 by David Leave a reply »

Simple one this…

Hi All,

It’s Sunday so it’s time for some more car upgrades.

This time I wanted to upgrade my, rather plain, Option Pack gear knob to something a little classier.

I got my hands on a Sport gear knob. It looks nice but, of course, it’s marked out for the 6-speed box. Not a great problem. I dropped both gear knobs into some pretty hot water and waited for ten minutes. Then I took a guitar plectrum and used it to lever off the top plate of each knob. The plate is plastic and held on by nothing more than double sided tape. I swapped the tops over and retaped them. Et voila!

Removing and fitting the gear knob is just a matter of screwing it in the appropriate direction. The finished article looks like this in its new home.

Looks pretty good with the silver gear shift surround.

Dave

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3 comments

  1. JFCost says:

    Cool trick Dave! Looks sharp, and it does match up nice with the silver gear shift surround! Good thinking. Enjoy your other tips on juicing up the MX-5. This site has a lot of great performance parts you might use for upcoming projects! Keep em coming!!!

  2. Mario says:

    Hey Dave

    Actually I did follow your article to replace the door speakers on my MX5 NC from 2008. Thanks for the help… really appreciated!

    I have a quick question as looking your web site I have seen this article as well. I want to replace my gear knob too but I am not able to unscrew it. I mean I don’t want to apply too much energy as I am afraid to brake something.

    I have the same gear knob as on the picture above (top plate surrounded by the silver plate).

    Can you tell me how you did unscrew? At least the direction? Unfortunately the picture on the web page do not appear anymore.

    Thanks!

  3. David says:

    Mario, the gear knob is simply threaded into the stick. It should turn anti-clockwise for removal. I suspect that it’s just a bit stuck!

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